Family Goes Homeless For Three Days To Raise Awareness

(Victor Valley)– Homelessness is a growing issue in not only our communities, but across the globe. In an order to raise awareness and to help less fortunate children, a family of four has gone homeless for three days in their Glendora community.

With shopping carts, signs and shirts identifying them as the Flores Family Foundation, the Flores family will spend Friday through Sunday living completely homeless. They will pan handle, live off of donations, and take with them only the basic necessities, like sleeping bags and such. This is all part of their Homeless 4 Hope program, where the foundation aims at raising awareness of the homeless in not just their community, but in every community. The foundation has unique roots, as siblings Sebastian and Brianna Flores, along with the help of their parents, William and Christian, started the foundation in 2012.

“We just feel it’s unfair for us to have so much,” said 13-year-old Sebastian Flores, President of the foundation. “We have a T.V., we have a comfortable bed to sleep in, we have air conditioning, we have heated showers, and some less fortunate people out there sleep on only concrete and don’t get the food they need.”

How did such young minds come up with an idea to help those in need? 11-year-old Brianna Flores talked about some of the experiences that led up to the foundation’s origins, “when we were young, we used to go to the LA missions and we would give presents instead of having Christmas presents for ourselves. So then we thought of starting a foundation to help others, because that was a little thing, and we wanted to do bigger.”

Some of the money raised will go to keep the family sustained while living on the streets, with the rest going right into the foundation to help with various other programs designed to help those in need.

William Flores, Executive Director of the foundation, talked about how the foundation came to be, and how his kids came to see the world the way they do. “The foundation was brought about with my background, growing up in the field of foster homes and group homes, I’ve worked with kids for the last 15 years. My kids have been able to see the things that they have, know the things that they have. We have taught them how to be able to give back and that they are very fortunate. So last year, the kids brought up that they wanted to start their own foundation, and that the cause was to give back to less fortunate children and families.”

The Flores Family Foundation is composed of the Flores family: Sebastian, 13, Brianna, 11, as well as their parents, William and Christian. Founded in 2012 by Sebastian and Brianna, the foundation’s goal has been to help underserved children and young adults with various programs, like Shoes & Socks for Soles, Backpacks 4 Success and toy drives, which helped needy children during the holiday season right here in the High Desert.